National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) in Fort Collins, CO is a USDA-sponsored facility on the campus of Colorado State University. The facility holds more than $264,119 seed samples of the nation's major crops and their native precursors. Prior to the 1940s, no organized system of germplasm (the living genetic material in seeds) conservation existed. Plant breeders and scientists banded together to encourage the formation of such a system, and in 1956 Congress allotted $450,000 to build the NSSL, and $100,000 yearly to run it.